Although deliberations around the idea of sustainable consumption have triggered pro-environmental consumption behaviors, empirical works show such consumption choices hardly manage to lower the ...overall environmental impacts of their total consumption baskets. Driven by corporate-led globalization, most developing countries have adopted the prevailing neoliberal economic model centered on growthism and developmentalism. What complicates the situation further is that this capitalistic economic model fetishizes the wealthy and valorizes aspirations that shape socio-culturally held notions of good life toward overconsumption, especially in the Global South. The discussion on sustainable consumption needs to expand its scope from the post-materialistic discourses in the Global North to realign itself better with the developmental discourse in the GS. Expanding this scope is easier said than done because of the fundamental dependency of the neo-liberal economic policy-driven developmentalism on consumerism. Once these macro-economic priorities percolate into socio-cultural priorities, further driving individuals' sense of the good life, it becomes even more challenging to decouple materialistically-oriented need-satisfiers from wellbeing. Therefore, it is to theorize how the act of consumption happens at the complex intersections of political-economic priorities, socio-cultural conventions, and individual aspirations for a better life, which is even more so relevant in the context of the GS. It is critical to understand, especially for the Global South, how these structural factors percolate into socio-cultural and individual priorities through the changing notions of the good life and eventually act as the fundamental sustaining factors that keep the prevailing political-economic arrangements running.
Research of alternative economies (AEs) has been portrayed as a mission of spreading visionary hopes for progressive change toward more sustainable and equitable economic systems. Despite its ...increasing popularity, it is less clear how it has been supported by empirical evidence. Therefore, we systematically searched for primary research studies on AEs (comprising alternative, diverse, community, or heterodox economies, and alternative food networks) published in recognized journals. We analyzed the patterns of the literature and characterized the examined AEs. We also overviewed methods and theories, and how the literature on AEs in the Global South conceptualizes both AEs and mainstream economic practices. We found that research of AEs has increased rapidly driven by an explosion of interest in alternative food networks. The published research of AEs has largely been a Western project signifying another example of the hierarchy of knowledge production. We argue that two general directions are worth to follow. First, the cultivation of empathy toward ontological diversity can make the research on AEs more pertinent to non-Western audience. Second, increased scope and epistemological rigor can make this research project more credible. We believe that these two directions can be followed without compromising the normative appeal of this scholarly programme.
Anticipating a Transformative Future Kirschenmann, Frederick
Journal of agriculture, food systems, and community development,
10/2016, Letnik:
6, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
How To Thrive in the Next Economy: Designing Tomorrow’s World Today, by John Thackara, is reviewed.
The wake of the 2008 financial crisis wrought economic havoc in Spain, resulting in the widespread protest of the indignados movement. Catalonia in particular saw a flourishing of various new forms ...of activism and socio‐economic collaboration, such as cooperative networks, eco‐villages and alternative currencies. This paper explores emerging forms of alternative currencies and commoning practices in Catalonia, Spain. It is based on ethnographic research to explore emergent grassroots innovations that theorise and practice degrowth proposals in diverse ways. In particular, it investigates developing forms of social currency and social debt, most of which are associated with the Catalan Integral Cooperative and FairCoop. This latter organisation is a network of cooperatives developing tools around Faircoin, a cryptocurrency based on social and ecological principles. In doing so, it contributes to alternative currencies scholarship. This paper shows how these self‐organised grassroots innovations are making use of technological and digital elements in order to build an alternative financial infrastructure. Furthermore, it demonstrates how these alternative social currencies and blockchain initiatives clearly show that non‐capitalist and degrowth oriented technological innovation can generate economies in more progressive and community‐led ways.
Objetivo: dar cuenta de las experiencias proyecto de traspatio, desarrollado entre un grupo de mujeres mayas de Canicab, Yucatán, México y un equipo integrado por participantes académicas no mayas. ...Metodología: En el marco de la investigación-acción-participativa y del diálogo de saberes, propusimos un proyecto productivo que favoreciera la sustentabilidad en esta localidad rural, identificada como de alta marginación. Resultados: el grupo conformado por las mujeres mayas optó por un proyecto de traspatio que hiciera posible tener alimentos sanos para sus familias propias y extensas mediante la crianza de gallinas y la producción de huevo, elección tomada a partir de sus lazos comunitarios y de parentesco. Limitaciones: Aunque se trabajó con mujeres, el texto carece de perspectiva de género o posicionamientos feministas. Conclusiones: observamos que lo que producen estas mujeres circula en dos lógicas, las prácticas culturales mayas relacionadas con solicitar, agradecer y compartir, y el mundo capitalista que convierte los bienes y el bienestar en dinero. Las decisiones tomadas por estas mujeres tienen tras de sí una historia relacionada con situaciones interculturales vinculadas con extensionistas gubernamentales y extorsionadores bancarios, que llevaron a Canicab la imposición de la ciencia occidental, por un lado, y el engaño y el despojo, por el otro.
West African informal collective institutions have much to offer the study of international development. Susu is the local name for a cooperative system involving rotating savings and credit ...associations (ROSCAs) practiced by millions of people. This essay argues that the Ghana susu are community economies, drawing on J. K. Gibson-Graham's theory of community economies and its ethical principles for amplifying well-being, conducting ethical business, encountering others, and the joyful commoning of goods. The essay's primary research was carried out in a community with forty-six susu members, through focus-group discussions and individual interviews in Accra, Tema, Cape Coast, and Kumasi. By acknowledging the susu system, the essay advances ideas of equity and highlights the African contribution to a sustainable economic model. The Ghana susu have a long-standing history of solidarity economics rooted in mutual aid, self-sufficiency, and the collective, and this history should be noted as a powerful antidote to neoliberal development.
The different categories of African hustler narratives represent particular ways of addressing the shortcomings of the African postcolonial economy from the perspective of the ultimately ...self-defeating responses of individual characters. This article examines the narrative significance of e-fraud literature as a subset of African hustler narratives. As an e-fraud novel, Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani's I Do Not Come to You by Chance follows the lives of e-scammers for whom e-fraud practice is an alternative to the exclusionary Nigerian postcolonial economy. However, in embracing e-fraud as an alternative to their economic exclusion, e-fraudsters in Nwaubani's novel appropriate a deceptive digital geography that is in dialogue with the same exploitative and extractive Nigerian postcolonial economic landscape which they seek to circumvent. In this way, the novel articulates the extent to which the performance of e-fraud economy as a hustle economy intersects with the arbitrariness and decline of Nigerian postcolonial economy.
Concepts that integrate human, animal, and ecosystem health - such as One Health (OH) - have been highlighted in recent years and mobilized in transdisciplinary approaches. However, there is a lack ...of input from the social sciences in OH discussions. This is a gap to overcome, including in Latin America. Therefore, this paper incorporates recent studies from economics and anthropology to the debate, contributing to the opening of transdisciplinary dialogues for the elaboration of OH theory and practice. As a starting point, we explore the recent case of a tailings dam breach, making considerations about how and why this event was experienced in different ways by the affected Indigenous and non-Indigenous worlds. From economics, we show how different theories perceive and impact these different worlds, presenting some existing alternatives to the hegemonic thinking of domination and exploitation. From anthropology, we present the perspectivism concept, deriving from the field of relational ontologies, suggesting there are significant and inevitable disagreements-equivocations-among different worlds. Thus, we discuss how the social sciences can help address challenging factors that need to be considered in health approaches that intend to deal with complex global problems. In conclusion, OH should incorporate social science discussions, considering relating practice to the multiple realities in which a particular problem or conflict is inserted. Overcoming the barriers that hinder transdisciplinary dialogue is fundamental and urgent for an effective approach to the multiple and distinct interconnections among humans, animals and environments.
In Ukrainian realities, the issue of implementing a circular economy is the most significant task for a country that is mainly focused on the extraction and processing of raw materials. The issue of ...applying the circular economy model and the possible imperatives of its implementation are formed on the basis of the realities of military operations and an unfavorable economic situation. The purpose of the research is to analyze the feasibility of implementing the circular economy, as well as the possible partial provision of its circulation based on using basic principles of functioning. The principal goal of the research is to evaluate theoretical and practical models of using the circular economy, as well as the relevance of developing such a model in Ukraine. The potential opportunities for developing the circular economy in the state are investigated with the help of forming and using information technologies, as well as specialized equipment. The represented results can be used in the public administration of the country for establishing a qualitative stabilization policy of the country's economy both in the conditions of war and in the post-war period. The academic paper investigates the basic principles of creating and developing the circular economy based on European experience. The research results can be useful for the corporate sector, as well as for the institutions of regulation of economic activity in private-state relations.
The goal of this article is to inform practitioners and researchers alike about the emerging practice of collaboratively mapping alternative economies. The paper draws from an inventory of over 200 ...maps, action research, and semi-structured interviews to explore how collaborative mapping – a practice that is largely citizen-driven – may be leveraged for the co-production of (scientific) knowledge about alternative economies. An array of real and ideal types is proposed in order to help navigate the various dimensions of collaborative mapping. Four lines of discussion are proposed: (1) what can we learn from maps when reframed as mappings – as processes? (2) How performativity may bring light to evaluating the transformational nature of knowledge derived from collaborative? (3) How does collaborative mapping offer avenues for rethinking empowerment of citizens in producing knowledge about alternative economies? And, (4) what new challenges are emerging from acknowledging digital knowledge as a commons?
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